8 Things I Want in Star Wars Episode 8: The Last Jedi

8 Things I Want in Star Wars Episode 8: The Last Jedi

I realize it’s too late. They’ve wrapped on the film and probably already swept away Mark Hamill’s beard clippings. That aside, here are 8 things I hope to see in The Last Jedi.

1. Close some mystery boxes. We talked on our Force Awakens Drill Down about how J.J. Abrams loves his “mystery boxes.” That’s great, but now we need to start seeing some pay off. Not all the “mystery boxes” have to be closed and we can even start opening some more. We just need to start getting answers. (It may be cheating, but a couple of the other items on this list call out specific mystery boxes that need to advance.)

2. Make Kylo mature a little. One of the common complaints against Kylo Ren was how he was emo. Maybe so. I think it mostly worked for who he was. But now he needs to mature some. Let’s see what he’s learned from the death of his father (at his own hands) and from massive defeat. If it’s more temper tantrums, that’s not super exciting. He needs to grow in how formidable he is.

3. Luke better be awesome and don’t strip away who he was in the OT. Obviously we’ll finally see more of Luke Skywalker, but my greatest fear is that our build up to him, which went nowhere in 7, will be disappointing in 8. He better be awesome and he better still be a hero. I don’t want to see that he’s wasted his last 30 years. There better be a good reason the hero of our childhood disappeared.

4. Fill in some of the gaps between 6 and 7. I realize they want to push their expanded universe stuff so we don’t have to spend too much time on it but I want to understand the state of galaxy a little better. How did we end Return of the Jedi with a victory for good only to end up practically in the same spot? Let’s fill this in a little bit.

5. Don’t shy away from the prequels. I know they are much maligned, but instead of ignoring them, let’s figure out a way to make them retroactively cooler.

6. Luke’s lightsaber. When Luke last saw that lightsaber, it was right after his hand had been sliced off and it fell to an uncertain destination on Cloud City. Miraculously intact, it shows up in Moz’s castle. I don’t want this story in a novel or comic, I want this answered in a movie.

7. New stuff. Instead of the old rebels versus empire storyline, I want to see some new stuff in this. The Force Awakens approached the cusp of that with the Guavians, but they didn’t really do much. Let’s see new threats and show how big this galaxy is.

8. Finally tell us who is Rey. Honestly, I’m not sure they’re going to do this. And if they do, I still think it will be near the end of the movie. Somehow every Star Wars fan is captivated by Rey’s parentage. Interesting, sure, but fan speculation on this is old. And we’ve not really been given enough information to have a real sense of who her parents are. It’s time to move on from this topic of conversation. The only way to do that is to finally answer the question.

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